In the News...

- Brussels, 27 May 2002.

Conference : Professor Debashis Chatterjee  in Brussels

Debashis Chatterjee is a Fulbright scholar at Harvard University and at MIT. He is currently heading the Centre for Leadership and Human Values at India’s premier business school : the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) at Lucknow. Harvard Business School described Debashis as one of the top-15 "thought leaders" of the world.  He is the author of a very inspiring book : “Leading Consciously”. Leading Consciously is a profound book where the deep human values --inspired from the Eastern philosophy and spirituality-- are integrated into the leader’s own development and active leadership style. 

The themes Debashis Chatterjee addressed at the conference are the self-mastery of a leader, and organizational transformation. These themes include many important facets. According to Debashis, we must first look at the transformation of business on a global scale and then answer the question how we will perceive business in the future.

There are some essential points which are already present or which need to be addressed. Debashis emphasized a shift of the center of gravity in business away from the West towards the East (especially India and China). From the individual point of view, we were also urged to ask ourselves the following questions : how much more we need/or how much less we need in order to obtain happiness (or remain happy) ? Do we need more and more external factors to satisfy our inner state of happiness ? Should we not seek inside ourselves, and find out what makes us happy as well ? We must recognize human beings  -- not capital investments -- as the real valuable currency. We must appeal to and relate to the human heart in order to inspire, engage and commit people around us.

Debashis considered the label we put on human experience, namely leadership. Leadership has existed possibly as long as humans have existed. Leadership requires a passion and in order to find that passion, leaders must ask themselves who they really are, what there values are and what they want to obtain. The leadership role is really about information and the energy we put into selecting and evaluating this information. Information is a necessity, but we have already surpassed the information age. We need to have our mind (our energy) behind selecting the right information. This brings us to the essential point in Debashis’ thoughts: Information and energy are not enough. It requires a high level of attention for the leader in order to succeed. Attention is the truly deciding factor. It is the function of attention and the span of attention, which determines the potential and growth of a leader. Attention is the nature and essence of human experience, and it is the wish to evolve and an ability to relate and love. According to Debashis, we are entering an economy of attention, where successful leaders of tomorrow understand the importance of relationship building, to capture and develop others. We need, as Debashis says, to “have a date with ourselves”, and the quality of attention we get equals the quality of attention we give to others. Leaders must listen actively and continuously ask questions. Leaders ask profound questions, big or small, and our journey to growth begins with questions. The big questions is, though, if we are willing to start questioning things about ourselves and about our surroundings and whether or not we are willing to believe in changes.

The next step for the future leader is to move from self-awareness to the qualities of how he/she leads. The leader must treat a person as a unique person with values; he/she must shift away from looking at persons as objects. When we treat others as human beings and not objects, people are able to rise to their potential. In essence, we cannot manage people; we can either exploit them and their resources or develop them and appeal to their hearts. The general trend is unfortunately that we are dependent on structures and control, and we treat human beings as objects to fit in our established systems. This tendency as Debashis calls “the outsourcing of our anxiety” must and should be changed so we instead treat others as human beings with values and aspirations. We must break out from the structure we have locked ourselves into.

Debashis continued to consider some key questions for leaders. The first one is the simple and still complex questions; what is the right knowledge? This is a refinement of attention rather than grasping for information. This is the task of having the “right” attention, and for leaders it is really about mobilizing their attention and intention to where they make a difference. Debashis mentioned Herbert Kelleher, the CEO of Southwest Airlines, as an example. Herbert Kelleher shifted the attention away from structure to the quality of customer focus/satisfaction. The next issue raised was our perception of the knowledge-creation process and in this connection, our tendency of strict structures of our compartments and our organization. The knowledge-creation process starts with the organization’s espoused values, which then lead to possibilities, then to creativity and then finally to insights. The leader must locate the right actions based on interconnectedness, passion and capability. We must introduce a systems-thinking approach in our organization and the way we perceive problems and our lives; this rather than separating everything in units, departments etc. as we have been accustomed throughout the industrialization era.

The next question leaders must consider is : what is the right way to organize? Debashis Chatterjee pointed out that for a leader it is not a question about implementing structures of control, but rather the ability to engage the whole organization. A leader must have a strategy for engagement, which appeals to the very heart of all people involved. As Debashis pointed out, the head office should in reality be the organization’s “heart office”, since full commitment derives from the heart, not through structures of control nor through the head. When a leader is able to show empathy and engagement in other people, then true commitment will occur. Finally, Debashis mentioned the secret of transition and the need for making changes. For a leader this is one of the most important tasks :  to see possibilities; to be able to question status quo -whereby he/she must stay alive and awake-, and to think out of the box by transforming established definitions. Again, the first step in a leader’s transition must start with an inner transition. Debashis ended the conference by repeating a singular and thought-provoking quote about leaders and followers : “no matter how big or small, ‘important’ or ‘unimportant’, I am as great to myself, as you are to yourself – therefore we are equal”.